Russia's autumn conscription: How many of the 133,000 draftees will end up in Ukraine?

Some 133,000 people are about to be called up for military service in Russia as part of a traditional autumn conscription campaign, where all men aged between 18 and 30 who are not reservists and are subject to military service have to be called in for a 12-month period.

This autumn call-up, which started Tuesday and runs until 31 December, is the second routine conscription campaign since the maximum age was raised from 27 to 30. 

New conscripts undergo one to two months of basic training, followed by three to six months of advanced training before arriving at their assigned units. 

Current law states that conscripts cannot be deployed to combat with less than four months of training and cannot be deployed outside of Russia — therefore, to the war in Ukraine.

Yet, many of them are. 

Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia, but very often, they end up on the other side of the border by way of signing up for professional army post-conscription.

The Russian NGO “Get Lost” supports people trying to avoid conscription, which often results in signing a contract, even unwillingly. 

Ivan Chuvilyaev said that conscripts are increasingly being forced to sign contacts with the Russian military. "An enlisted soldier finds himself in a very difficult situation. In fact, he has no options not to be on a contract," Chuvilyaev told Euronews.

He explained that at first, soldiers are persuaded to do so with arguments like "everyone has signed, but you haven't yet, and everyone has received money, but you haven't."

If this doesn't work, they are promised things, such as "If you sign, we will send you to serve in a safe region somewhere in the Urals or Siberia or close to home (and) if you don't sign, you will go to a zone